Tag: shanty

I mentioned yesterday that I had a new keyboard. I still have it. I’ve added about four fingers of scotch to the evening. Don’t worry, it’s got three cubes of ice so it can’t be more that two and a half fingers, and it ain’t all drunk.

One thing I’ve not done is define much about The Solex Corporation and it’s religious affiliations…or roots. I think maybe doing that could help me find additional layers of conflict in both the Shanty and Benhá threads. Let’s see what I can come up with.

So far I’ve written all the Brother Gane stuff with an odd mixture of religion and programmer speak. Essentially describing hres as prayers which work directly and very practically on solex panels. The language I’ve used to describe these prayers always uses programming jargon. I call him a monk, but I’ve not spent any time deciding what or who he prays to or why. I’ve loosely thought of the solex panels as solar panels which collect the suns rays and turn them into a form of magic parallel to electricity. Beyond that I’ve not thought it through.

Since I’ve been thinking of The Solex Corporation as a combination of monks and business men then maybe I’ ought to make the whole entity a bit bifurcated. I like that idea since it gives me the chance to have lots of fun internal squabbling and conflict, but I also like the challenge of writing it in such a way as to make it perfectly homogeneous and normal. If I did the later I’d want to make it 50:50. wouldn’t want there to be an obvious leaning one way or another—never a corporation with heavy religious influence; never a religious order with a corporate mentality. Both. Evenly.

Back to the magic though.

What’s the story there exactly? Part of me wants to perpetrate the hoax I’ve been harboring for a while now where a group of magicians pretend to be a manufacturing group to conceal their magic and make it look like mechanics, but I’m not sure I need to waste that little bit of fun on this thread. Since I’ve got a demi-god in thos whole thing I suspect that magic wouldn’t be too hard to add in, but I’ve not really defined the demo-god thing either so that’s easily removed if necessary. Although I suppose I could mix a demi-god with tech and not need magic in there too.

Both as a corp and a religion The Solex Corporation is going to have natural competitors, detractors, and enemies. Let me take these each at a time.

Competitors requires I know what it is these guys do to some greater degree I suppose. Though it’s reasonable to go the Coke Pepsi route here and just suggest that there is an entirely parallel corporation out there working a slightly different angle in the same niche. Exact same products and uses, but a different price point or maybe a different quality point. Maybe just later to market and always with a minor market share. A competitor like Pepsi who never goes after the 800 lb gorilla just tries harder to increase consumer mindshare and be no bigger than needed. Not much conflict here, more like natural good natured rivalry. That doesn’t mean that individuals couldn’t get carried away and competitive, but it’s unlikely the corps will do direct battle. Or I could turn the table and make The Solex Corp the upstart taking on the 800 lb gorilla. That gives them a fire the other guys don’t possess. In many readers minds that puts the other guy in the natural enemy camp. That could be fun and might even give me a place to put Roundmartin in the Shanty history.

Detractors would be competing in the same niche but with vastly different products. These would be the electricity guys trying to play off The Solex Corp as some sort of freaks of nature. Freaks who are potentially even immoral somehow because they use magic. These guys could give anywhere from the full-court press to just being innuendo-y. In any case they’d be aggressive from an oblique angle. Not head on. Always trying to make the customer feel a little dirty about going with The Solex Corp rather than the clean and natural electric co.

Enemies. Hmmm? The first two I only addressed the business side of The Solex Corp and not the religious. Now that I think on enemies I’ve got religion as the only comer. Might want to circle back and make it an even show. Religions hardly ever seem to clash until two get extreme enough compete for the same souls or large enough to finally square off ideologically. I don’t see that happening here. Or at least I don’t see it being something I’m interested in writing.

Brother Taig had a knack for being both happy and lop-sided. When circled in casual conversation with his fellow brothers they would swear his left leg was at least an inch shorter than the right, but gathered again later in the day—maybe just prior to Nones—the same gathered group would swear the opposite: that his right leg was now the shorter of the two. His moustache would—depending on the time of the year—favor one side or the other as well. His fellows imagined him at the glass with his razor carefully matching one side with the other but always just a little uneven. They assumed he attended to one half till he realized the other was too long then switched sides to bring them up even only to discover he’d taken to wide a whack again. These same moustache appraisers then concluded that he eventually just stopped as to avoid a moustache breadth no longer in style. Asymmetrical being preferable to arcane. When he moved it was like bales being dumped out of the back of a hay truck. Presumably his leg length switched sides uncontrollably during locomotion.

He never once acknowledged his incongruity. He never said ‘I should just shave this whole blasted thing off’ or ‘Sorry for bumping into you. I’ve got two extra knees and elbows, you know?’ He just smiled, bobbed his whole upper half like a bow, and drew you in with a hello that made you wish you were as comfortable in your own misshapen body…your own imperfect life as he was in his.

Lull – You speak to the Adroit Supplicant and blame him for your desperation.

Plot Point 2 – You decide the only way out is the way down; you vow to kill the demi-god expecting to die in the effort.

Conclusion – You do kill the demi-god; you do die in the effort.

Some of that’s a little squeezy, but I think I could work it out to make sense without significant overhaul. At least it’s a shit ton further along than I’ve been in the past with You or The Shanty thread.